Damp - Conflicting info & quotes

Heath_Robinson

Peter Cox are one of the best damp companies, highly recommended and the guy who came to my house was a lot more thorough and helpful than anyone else I spoke to. However at the end of the day they're still basically a chemical DPC company and that's what they'll be selling you.

blossom385

go onto https://www.bwpda.co.uk and find a contractor in your area. This is the regulatory body of all qualified damp specialists. If you are unfortunate and a dispute arises they can mediate. By getting a contractor from them you can be sure you wont get cowboys

Lolly1968

We just had a similar problem. The damp appeared very quickly after heavy rains. We could see nothing obviously wrong with our gutters/down pipe but I asked our helpful window cleaner if he would take a look while he was up the ladder. He found a stray bit of TV aerial blocking the downpipe and loads of leaves had backed up causing the rain to gush over the top and into our wall. We stripped the wall paper to let the wall dry out but everyday there is a coating of white fluffy mould. We keep spraying it with anti-mould spray and wiping it away but it keeps appearing. Is this just the wall taking days to dry? Do we just be patient and keep cleaning until it eventually goes away?

Householder

Last year I invited Peter Cox to do some remedial damp proofing in my house, and the sole workman they sent did an appalling job. He tore off skirting boards and door surrounds and replaced them with massive gouges cut out, did horrible uneven tiling, left great holes between fitted cupboards and walls/ceiling, left the sink he replaced leaking, etc etc so I refused to pay the balance having paid 30% of a massive estimate of 4,000 plus pounds. I had to insist the surveyor should return to inspect the work, and he was rude and shouted at me. I refused to allow him back in as he had frightened my tenant, who is a woman normally alone in the house.
I had to get someone in to repair the damage, and how could I know the damp course was in correctly when the rest of the work was so shoddy? I complained formally to head office at the time, waited three months for a response, they made a paltry offer which I refused. I was already out of pocket since I had had to pay Anyway, five months since that communication Peter Cox is now taking me to court. WHat should I do? The Trade Association was founded by Peter Cox so will they really help?
If you look at their contract, first of all you cannot take them to court, you have to take them to arbitration which is massively expensive, als othe contract says they are not laible for ANY damages their workmen do! What a contract! I feel certain it falls foul of various consumer protection acts.

David_Aldred

Hi Householder,
Sorry to hear you have had problems with the contractor and that both parties have been unable to reach an amicable settlement to date such that the contractor has escalated the dispute to litigation which should be seen as a last resort where there is failure to agree. The following points of interest are just general comments and specific cases may well vary such that you or anyone reading this post must take appropriate legal advice and not simply act upon the information given below:

If a person in such a situation as yourself was to defend the case then it would be prudent to notify the court to this affect via recorded delivery as soon as possible and to contact a solicitor without delay who is experienced in disputes of this kind to act upon your behalf. The solicitor may well advise you to counter claim if they feel that is appropriate. In addition consider writing to the Property Care Association (PCA) via recorded mail giving them details of the matter and requesting a written response within a set period of time as this contractor will be a member of the PCA and has to abide by a code of conduct to act with reasonable care and skill for a company in their profession.

If the contractor is in agreement they may be prepared to drop legal preceedings in favour of arbitration (though there is a risk they may not at this stage) and if arbitration is agreed as a way forward then both parties must in writing beforehand agree to abide by the decision of such a competant arbitrator.

That arbitrator may be a competant person of the PCA if the plaintiff and defendent both so wish or it could be anyone else who is competant to act as an arbitrator (your solicitor may assist with choice).

The PCA arbitration service in my experience is fair to the layperson and should not be frowned upon as an in house old boys network for contractors though I appreciate why you may view it as such given that the PCA is mostly but not entirely funded by the contractors who form the majority of its members.

If your solicitor deems it appropriate they may suggest you have your own independent survey of the work undertaken by an independent specialist surveyor (not contractor as they would be seen to have a conflict of interest) to act upon your behalf.

May I strongly suggest you opt for such a specialist surveyor / consultant as opposed to a general Chartered Building Surveyor because the specialist independent knows exactly what is involved with this type of work and is often a poacher turned gamekeeper such that their experience of the industry is invaluable to know all the ins and outs of what specifically to look for to give you the greatest chance of winning your case.

Such independent specialist surveyors may be found upon the PCA website under the heading of find a member and then selecting Freelance Surveyor or Consultant (the rest are contractors looking for work). In addition it may be worth contacting your insurer as for example (but no guarantee) a case I have recently dealt with the insurer met all legal and independent specialist surveyors / lab work fees for a dispute with a contractor which obviously would be helpful.

Whatever course of action you decide upon please do not ignore the matter as it will not go away and I know hindsight is a great thing but if it were me I would have sought appropriate advice upon the matter as soon as I became aware the work was in my opinion unsatisfactory. Hope this helps and an amicable resolution for all parties can be found. Kindest regards, David Aldred Independent damp and timber surveyor.

I,_Geek

My husband and I feel like we dodged a £2500 DPC bullet this week (and possibly worse after reading householder's post).

Basically, we got a free survey done when we were buying our house to satisfy the bank. Since we didn't own the property yet we were reluctant to throw too much money at it.

Then we moved in and got a good look at the empty rooms where apparently all walls needed stripping up to 1m and a DPC injecting. There were 3 places where something was going wrong, but we were suspicious as to why the entire ground floor needed doing. We worked out the cause of one spot by ourselves - raised step outside took the ground level above the original DPC.

The free survey isn't really so if you go with the company's recommendation anyway and get unnecessary work done. Our independent surveyor will cost about £250 and we'll have a written report in a few days explaining exactly what we have to do at each mouldy/flaky point to remedy the situation. He explained while he was here so we know already it's pretty simple stuff that won't cost anywhere near £2500 or cause the mess and upheaval that replastering the whole downstairs would bring.

dampdaveski

David gives good advice,
I agree with him (for once ) that if you goto arbitration / courts etc you should definately NOT go to a general chartered surveyor, unless they state that they specialise in 'damp' cases, a freelance as per the type who are on the PCA website (remember though they are just freelance surveyors looking for work)

as David advertises himself on here he has to be a bit careful regarding making comments about multi branch preservation companies.
However as I prefer to remain anonymous on here, I can offer my personal opinion. You have a bit of russian roulette going on with the national companies (I won't name them so as not to appear vindictive )
some of their teams will do a good job,A lot will do a mediocre one,
reason?
mullah! the operative doesn't want to take his time and make a spot on job because the quicker he gets it done the more money he gets
pricing is generally an issue too, why are they expensive?
Surveyor who comes out wants his bonus,
operative who does the work wants his bonus,
surveyors area manager wants his bonus,
area managers boss wants his bonus,
you can see where I'm going with this.
The fact that they are taking you to court when you are in dispute, AND make you sign a restrictive contract that takes into account what will happen regarding court action etc speaks volumes too

Anyway I Hope it goes well for you and good luck!

dampdaveski

*EvilMissKitty* wrote: »

Hello everyone! :hello:

This is my first post on the forum!

We have recently started to decorate our living/dining rooms, two weeks ago we had a heavy downpour and we had damp patches appear on the lower walls of the front and the rear of the house.
:T

Hi,
It sounds like you might have hygroscopic salt contamination of your plaster, if all the gutters etc are ok and there are no leaks.
This could be an OLD rising damp problem or it could quite simply be caused by the effects of condensation/ high humidity.
If it has appeared virtually overnight it is unlikely to be a case of rising dadmp, I suggest getting a dehumidifier and sticking it in the room to dry and draw the moisture out of the plaster, a fan or infra red heater pointing at the wall would help too (obviously not left unattended or too close to the wall).
Draw a line around the patches before you start and see what happens. If it doesn't dry out at all, it is likely there is an underlying problem that needs further investigation, if it does dry out, I would be tempted to apply a stain blocker paint and redecorate, there is of course a risk to doing this as if it came back your decorations could be spoiled.
If it's a prob take a piccy or two and stick em on here, so the problem might be easier to identify
hope this helps
DD